‘Outstanding achievement’ ... Cubs from the West Hoathly group show off their remarkable collection of badges.
Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

In 1916 a Cub scout keen for an armful of badges would need to show “pluck” in team sports, run a furlong in 50 seconds, know how to get to the nearest blacksmith’s forge and tell a mushroom from a toadstool.

Today the requirements for full honours involve aboriginal art, bake-offs, ukulele strumming and visits to mosques. These were just some of the activities undertaken by eight Cubs at the 1st West Hoathly Cub Scout Pack in West Sussex, who have stitched a full house of badges on to their sleeves – 472 badges between them – in what is thought to be a record-breaking feat.

The milestone, which leaves Matthew and Katie Smith, George and Sophie Brown, Luke Rush, Toby Mackie-Clark, Samantha Sailtonova and Millie Chalk no mountains to climb unless they join the scouts, has been saluted by the chief scout, Bear Grylls, as an “outstanding achievement”. It also sheds light on a century of social change – seen most clearly in the fact that a fifth of the UK’s 158,722 Cubs are now girls.

The West Hoathly Cubs making candles. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

The original Wolf Cubs, as they were known when Robert Baden-Powell founded the scouting scheme for younger boys in 1916, were a product of the end days of British empire, but their badges made little reference to the rest of the world. In contrast, the West Hoathly Cubs secured their artist badges by making Diwali lanterns and Indian rangoli floor patterns, and bagged the international awareness badge by marking the 400th anniversary of the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landing in Australia in 1616.

The requirement for the Cub signaller to know semaphore or morse code has long been overtaken by computer programming, and the West Hoathly Cubs did computer coding for the digital citizen and digital awareness badge. The house orderly badge, as it was known, required being able to “make a good cup of tea” and light a fire with no more than two matches, whereas today’s home help requires a working knowledge of unloading a dishwasher.

“Disability was hard,” said Samantha, 10, referring to the disability awareness badge. “We had to think about being without sight or hearing. You had to rely on someone else. It was quite weird. I felt quite relieved I didn’t have this disability but I felt very sorry for people who have this every day.”

She added: “I thought I might not get the map one. To be honest, I am rubbish at maps.”

For Katie the equestrian badge was the hardest, because she had never ridden a horse.

Interaction with the natural world has also changed for today’s Cubs. The environment conservation activity badge – which suggests using a smart meter and separating recycling – differs markedly from the 1916 observer badge, which required knowing the names and appearance of 20 British flowers and trees and the history and habits of five British wild animals.

The West Hoathly Cubs take part in Christmas craft activities. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Meanwhile, today’s naturalist activity badge requires making four visits to a piece of outdoor space and recording the changes.

Other things have remained consistent. Today’s physical recreation badge requires the display of “a good sporting attitude” – a rather more pedestrian description than the 1916 exhortation that the bearer’s “play should be up to the mark and scrupulously fair” and that “good temper, pluck and honest, unselfish play shall count as much as skill”.

But gone altogether is the requirement in the swimming badge for the applicant to “be able to take off a pair of socks in the water”, while the old weaver badge requiring the Cub to be able to “make a kettle holder in cross-stitch” is a thing of the past.